Thousands Criminalized in Ferguson
By FRANCES ROBLES
SEPT. 12, 2014
New York Times
Katrina Clemons and her husband, Grover, are among the nearly 12,000 people with pending arrest warrants in Ferguson
FERGUSON, Mo. — There were lots of jitters at the Ferguson police clerk’s window this week, as steady streams of drivers with unpaid traffic tickets and pending arrest warrants turned themselves in as part of a new city initiative to repair its frayed relationship with black residents.
They looked around skeptically. “I don’t know if they are going to lock me up,” said Katrina Clemons, who owes almost $800 in fines and penalties from a $250 traffic ticket. “I do not like coming here.”
The drivers came with their citations, thousand-dollar invoices, and tales of racial profiling and exorbitant fees. In the wake of last month’s killing of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer, their frustrations with the police and local courts had boiled over, pressuring elected city officials this week to scale back municipal penalties that had helped fill the city’s coffers even as they had lightened the wallets of the poor.
On Tuesday, the City Council decided to abolish fines that are routinely issued if a defendant fails to show up for court, repeal a “failure to appear” law that led to many incarcerations, and give people a month to come forward and void their warrants. It also created a special docket for defendants who have difficulty making payments on outstanding fines and moved to establish a civilian review board to oversee the Police Department, which is under investigation by the Justice Department’s civil rights division.
Data from municipal courts across Missouri show that in 2013, the city of Ferguson had the highest number of warrants issued in the state relative to its size. Arrest warrants are often served by municipal courts when someone fails to appear in court to pay fines for a traffic or other violation, like shoplifting, assault or disturbance of peace.
The high rate could reflect more crime as well as heavier prosecution, and it could be indicative of a fraught relationship between law enforcement and citizens. Brendan Roediger, an assistant professor at Saint Louis University School of Law and supervisor of the school’s Civil Litigation Clinic, said that resentment toward the police in Ferguson “is primarily formed around these interactions and not around investigations of serious crimes.”
Residents and experts said that while the actions were significant, the problems many drivers face across St. Louis County, where a patchwork of municipal courts enforce an array of ordinances, were so widespread that Ferguson alone could not fix them. Many African-Americans, who are pulled over at higher rates than whites, face traffic fines that, if not paid, can land them in jail.
So the trust level was not high in court and at the police clerk’s window in Ferguson this week.
“I believe it’s all a lie,” said Zurich Bruckner, a 39-year-old construction worker who went to traffic court on Thursday night to fight a $102 ticket he got because of a blue light near the license plate of his 1993 Lexus. “That’s extortion.”
Mr. Bruckner explained: The light was not broken; it was blue. “That’s an extraordinary amount to pay for a bulb that’s working,” he said.
Mr. Bruckner recently served two 90-day sentences for traffic fines in another city and for failing to pay child support, so he made sure to show up to court in Ferguson to avoid problems. The charge was dismissed but he had to pay $25 in court costs.
Municipal fines are the city’s second-highest source of revenue. Last year Ferguson drivers paid $12,400 in fines for driving cars with tinted windows. They paid another $4,905 for loud music coming out of their cars. The biggest slice of that revenue comes from people, like Ms. Clemons, who drive without insurance. In 2013, the city of just 21,000 people made almost $287,000 on that infraction alone.
Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story
After missing a court date, Ms. Clemons became one of the nearly 12,000 people with pending arrest warrants in Ferguson. Her husband, Grover, had one, too.
Mr. Clemons got a ticket for an expired license plate, but he showed up in court with $80, not $100, so a warrant was issued. “I did not miss my court date,” Mr. Clemons said. “I was $20 short.”
The city issued about 25,000 arrest warrants last year — three per household, according to Arch City Defenders, a nonprofit legal group that recently published a scathing report on the issue.
To combat the notion that the city deliberately issued tickets to finance its operations, the Council on Tuesday agreed to limit how much of the city’s general fund can come from municipal fines.
“Are we proactively trying to pull people over to raise money? I think the numbers don’t bear that out,” Mayor James Knowles III said in an interview. “There is a review being done of the courts in the area. We are hoping to get in front of it. We hope to become a model.”
Mr. Knowles said he had asked other city mayors to join him in making reforms, but he had not “gotten any takers yet.”
Alexes Harris, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Washington, said it was becoming more common for cities to issue harsh court fines.
“Ferguson is not an outlier,” she said. “This is happening everywhere.”
She and the Arch City Defenders worry that the changes do not go far enough, because people still have to pay off the steep fines.
Mr. Knowles and the City Council sat stone-faced for three hours on Tuesday night as resident after resident vented about racial profiling and police harassment. They heard from Markese Mull, a 39-year-old father of three who told how his traffic fines climbed to $2,000 because the municipal court would not allow him to pay them in $50 installments.
His $600 fine for driving without a license more than tripled and landed him in jail twice, he said. On Friday, he went to the police station and put down $100.
“The pressure of Mike Brown is on their heads and all they stuff they do is coming out,” Mr. Mull said, referring to the 18-year-old who was killed Aug. 9 by a Ferguson police officer, Darren Wilson. A private autopsy showed Mr. Brown was struck six times, including once on the top of his head. The police assert that Officer Wilson felt he was being threatened by Mr. Brown, but witnesses have said that the teenager appeared to be surrendering when he was killed.
The episode touched off weeks of unrest and revealed years of resentment toward local law enforcement.
“They act like we don’t know our rights or we can’t find out what they are,” said Sophia Jones, who cleared a warrant on Thursday.
She cut the conversation short and scurried out of the lobby. “I am nervous being in this vicinity, because I’ve been in that jail so many times.”
 |
| Ferguson, MO couple facing arrest warrants. |
SEPT. 12, 2014
New York Times
Katrina Clemons and her husband, Grover, are among the nearly 12,000 people with pending arrest warrants in Ferguson
FERGUSON, Mo. — There were lots of jitters at the Ferguson police clerk’s window this week, as steady streams of drivers with unpaid traffic tickets and pending arrest warrants turned themselves in as part of a new city initiative to repair its frayed relationship with black residents.
They looked around skeptically. “I don’t know if they are going to lock me up,” said Katrina Clemons, who owes almost $800 in fines and penalties from a $250 traffic ticket. “I do not like coming here.”
The drivers came with their citations, thousand-dollar invoices, and tales of racial profiling and exorbitant fees. In the wake of last month’s killing of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer, their frustrations with the police and local courts had boiled over, pressuring elected city officials this week to scale back municipal penalties that had helped fill the city’s coffers even as they had lightened the wallets of the poor.
On Tuesday, the City Council decided to abolish fines that are routinely issued if a defendant fails to show up for court, repeal a “failure to appear” law that led to many incarcerations, and give people a month to come forward and void their warrants. It also created a special docket for defendants who have difficulty making payments on outstanding fines and moved to establish a civilian review board to oversee the Police Department, which is under investigation by the Justice Department’s civil rights division.
Data from municipal courts across Missouri show that in 2013, the city of Ferguson had the highest number of warrants issued in the state relative to its size. Arrest warrants are often served by municipal courts when someone fails to appear in court to pay fines for a traffic or other violation, like shoplifting, assault or disturbance of peace.
The high rate could reflect more crime as well as heavier prosecution, and it could be indicative of a fraught relationship between law enforcement and citizens. Brendan Roediger, an assistant professor at Saint Louis University School of Law and supervisor of the school’s Civil Litigation Clinic, said that resentment toward the police in Ferguson “is primarily formed around these interactions and not around investigations of serious crimes.”
Residents and experts said that while the actions were significant, the problems many drivers face across St. Louis County, where a patchwork of municipal courts enforce an array of ordinances, were so widespread that Ferguson alone could not fix them. Many African-Americans, who are pulled over at higher rates than whites, face traffic fines that, if not paid, can land them in jail.
So the trust level was not high in court and at the police clerk’s window in Ferguson this week.
“I believe it’s all a lie,” said Zurich Bruckner, a 39-year-old construction worker who went to traffic court on Thursday night to fight a $102 ticket he got because of a blue light near the license plate of his 1993 Lexus. “That’s extortion.”
Mr. Bruckner explained: The light was not broken; it was blue. “That’s an extraordinary amount to pay for a bulb that’s working,” he said.
Mr. Bruckner recently served two 90-day sentences for traffic fines in another city and for failing to pay child support, so he made sure to show up to court in Ferguson to avoid problems. The charge was dismissed but he had to pay $25 in court costs.
Municipal fines are the city’s second-highest source of revenue. Last year Ferguson drivers paid $12,400 in fines for driving cars with tinted windows. They paid another $4,905 for loud music coming out of their cars. The biggest slice of that revenue comes from people, like Ms. Clemons, who drive without insurance. In 2013, the city of just 21,000 people made almost $287,000 on that infraction alone.
Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story
After missing a court date, Ms. Clemons became one of the nearly 12,000 people with pending arrest warrants in Ferguson. Her husband, Grover, had one, too.
Mr. Clemons got a ticket for an expired license plate, but he showed up in court with $80, not $100, so a warrant was issued. “I did not miss my court date,” Mr. Clemons said. “I was $20 short.”
The city issued about 25,000 arrest warrants last year — three per household, according to Arch City Defenders, a nonprofit legal group that recently published a scathing report on the issue.
To combat the notion that the city deliberately issued tickets to finance its operations, the Council on Tuesday agreed to limit how much of the city’s general fund can come from municipal fines.
“Are we proactively trying to pull people over to raise money? I think the numbers don’t bear that out,” Mayor James Knowles III said in an interview. “There is a review being done of the courts in the area. We are hoping to get in front of it. We hope to become a model.”
Mr. Knowles said he had asked other city mayors to join him in making reforms, but he had not “gotten any takers yet.”
Alexes Harris, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Washington, said it was becoming more common for cities to issue harsh court fines.
“Ferguson is not an outlier,” she said. “This is happening everywhere.”
She and the Arch City Defenders worry that the changes do not go far enough, because people still have to pay off the steep fines.
Mr. Knowles and the City Council sat stone-faced for three hours on Tuesday night as resident after resident vented about racial profiling and police harassment. They heard from Markese Mull, a 39-year-old father of three who told how his traffic fines climbed to $2,000 because the municipal court would not allow him to pay them in $50 installments.
His $600 fine for driving without a license more than tripled and landed him in jail twice, he said. On Friday, he went to the police station and put down $100.
“The pressure of Mike Brown is on their heads and all they stuff they do is coming out,” Mr. Mull said, referring to the 18-year-old who was killed Aug. 9 by a Ferguson police officer, Darren Wilson. A private autopsy showed Mr. Brown was struck six times, including once on the top of his head. The police assert that Officer Wilson felt he was being threatened by Mr. Brown, but witnesses have said that the teenager appeared to be surrendering when he was killed.
The episode touched off weeks of unrest and revealed years of resentment toward local law enforcement.
“They act like we don’t know our rights or we can’t find out what they are,” said Sophia Jones, who cleared a warrant on Thursday.
She cut the conversation short and scurried out of the lobby. “I am nervous being in this vicinity, because I’ve been in that jail so many times.”
No comments:
Post a Comment